If you overlay the basic "Pressure point" anatomy used in Japanese martial arts over what is known about human anatomy you often find some interested corrolations. Many are points where major nerve branches slip in or out of bone or where the major plate fussions take place in the skeletal system. The later part is a major consideration historically as most combat was done by young people at ages when compelte bone fussion had not happened and may explain the various stories of delayed deaths and the like.

The Japanese, like the Chinese, had a taboo against the manipulation of human remains preventing detailed internal anatomy from taking root. That so much about how to disable and dismantle a human being was deduced without any autopsy or dissection is amazing. It is also one of the reasons that a lot of superstitions developed around this information. Westerners who are often ignorant of the anatomical considerations end up focusing on the superstitious explainations because it feeds the sense of wonder that drove them to study "exotic" practices.

Basically its just a bunch of techniques for reviving people after they have been choked out. Its common sense stuff that works. Kano always explained things scientifically. He was a great modernist and educator who reformed jujutsu.

I don't think anyone debates that there are weak spots and exposed portions of the human body, and that funny/amusing things happen when you hit them. It's people that believe "magically tapping them and exploding someone's heart works, so why do all those nasty situps" we have a problem with...

There's no choice but to confront you, to engage you, to erase you. I've gone to great lengths to expand my threshold of pain. I will use my mistakes against you. There's no other choice.

I've seen kappo worked, twice actually. Tho' in retrospect only one used any pressure-pointiness. One was in practice some n00b didn't tap and passed out, Sensei walked over hands rubbed lapel and face or something like that, worked well he woke up and was fine.
The second was an ouchimata at a local tourney and his balls were shoved into his pelvis. Simple cross-leg sit up and and down drop until they pop out then the reviving thing was done and he was off to the hospital.

I've seen kappo worked, twice actually. Tho' in retrospect only one used any pressure-pointiness. One was in practice some n00b didn't tap and passed out, Sensei walked over hands rubbed lapel and face or something like that, worked well he woke up and was fine.
The second was an ouchimata at a local tourney and his balls were shoved into his pelvis. Simple cross-leg sit up and and down drop until they pop out then the reviving thing was done and he was off to the hospital.

Cool, I didn't know this about Kano being mad about the book. Where did you guys get this info? Was there anything in the book that Kano believed was misrepresented?

According to MA historian Joe Svinth, editor of the Electronic Journals of Martial Arts and Sciences (EJMAS) -

Richard Bowen has quoted Trevor Leggett as saying that Kano was rather upset by Hancock's usage, but as Japan was not a signatory to the Berne Convention at the time, there wasn't much he could do."

"The first edition of Hancock's book was published in New York in 1905, and the conference that codified judo did not take place until July 1906. The style shown is more likely the jujutsu practiced by Higashi, which *may* have been Tsutsumi Hozan Ryu. Therefore, for an idea about what judo looked like in the early days, a better source would be Arima's "Judo: Japanese Physical Culture," published in 1904 and introduced by Kano.

More detail:

1. The first edition of Hancock's book was published in 1905. The conference that standardized Kodokan judo took place in Kyoto in July 1906.

2. Tomita and Maeda were in New York in April 1905. Tomita told the New York World that what Higashi did was not Kodokan judo, and then had Maeda do some demonstrations of what real judo was. The reporters were suitably impressed.

3. In his preface to Arima's "Judo: Japanese Physical Culture" dated December 1904, Kano wrote: "There has till this day appeared no work on judo, not even one dealing with its outlines, the only writings so far published in this connection being some sketches of my lectures printed in the Kojkushi, an organ of the Koshikwai... [Arima's book] is a good one, considering the difficulty attendant on such a task. Especially beneficial will it be at a time like the present when no similar work exists." Note that Kano did not endorse Hancock's book, and indeed, given the time it took to ship books in those days, he could not have seen it, let alone endorsed it, prior to its publication. Thus his name was being borrowed without permission.

4. The Hancock book says the kwappo is part of the system. Arima says, "Kwappo, the art of restoring apparently dead persons to life, does not belong to judo proper." If Arima (and ostensibly Kano) believed this in 1904, then why is Kano being credited with it in the US in 1905, unless people are putting words in his mouth?

5. The techniques described by Arima are recognizably modern in name and description. Ippon Seoi-nage, tai-otoshi, kata-guruma, etc. Many of Higashi's techniques, such as groin kicks, are not so recognizable in judo.

6. According to Jan de Jong, the ranking teacher of Tsutsumi Hozan Ryu in the world today (and the only one he knows of, his teachers having died in Indonesia during or shortly after WWII), Higashi was part of the Tsutsumi system. You can ask Neil Hawkins, a student of Jan de Jong, for additional information or a lineage chart -- it was published Before Crash -- but I don't think they have much.

7. The master of the Tsutsumi Hozan Ryu *did* contribute to the Kyoto conference of July 1906. However, as Kodokan judo was not standardized until that conference, it is somewhat presumptuous to believe that Higashi knew what it was, especially inasmuch as his technical ability was clearly not much higher than shodan. (Yukio Tani beat him easily, and Tani did not make nidan until 1920.)

8. Richard Bowen has quoted Trevor Leggett as saying that Kano was not very happy with the Hancock book, which was wrong (in his opinion) but constantly reprinted with his name on the cover.

So, while there is inference here, unless someone shows me documentary proof that Tomita in April 1905 didn't know what he was talking about, it remains my professional opinion that Hancock knew that Kano was head of the most famous jujutsu school in Japan, and therefore exaggerated, as was his wont, Higashi's lineage and abilities.